East Asian Football Championship: do Hong Kong really have no chance?
Coach Ashley Westwood plays up size of task against Japan, hosts South Korea and China, but city’s team are unbeaten in 10 games
Ashley Westwood is a stickler for detail, so it was probably no accident that he exaggerated Hong Kong’s underdog status on the eve of their first East Asian Football Championship match on Tuesday.
“We’re playing three very good teams, two of the best-ranked teams in Asia, and China, a good, strong side,” the city’s head coach said in Yongin, on the outskirts of Seoul, as he previewed the opening clash with Japan.
As if to emphasise the gulf between his Hong Kong side and the rest, he went on to refer to “15th-ranked Japan, 23 [South] Korea, 93 China, and in the background is us, 159 currently”.
In fact, Hong Kong have climbed to No 153 since Westwood took over last August, while China sit slightly lower than claimed, at 94, but the coach and his charges have eagerly cast themselves as happy-go-lucky tourists in their few public utterances since arriving in South Korea on Saturday.
The “good, strong” billing Westwood gave China may come as a surprise to supporters of the struggling mainlanders, who began with a 3-0 loss to the Koreans on Monday.